Poetry
Defeat
Derrota
Rafael Cadenas · 1963
Synopsis
A long poem in free verse, with no story and no character, driven by the relative “que” (that): the speaker, in the first person, draws up the list of his failures. He has never had a trade, feels weak before any rival, has lost the best titles for life, knows himself mocked by the most capable and the object of his own laughter; he even confesses shame for acts he has not committed. The poem thus sides with the defeated, the clumsy and the undecided, against every figure of the hero.
Context
Written during a personal crisis, a depression according to its author, the poem first appeared in a journal in 1963 and was reprinted, according to Arrowsmith, in Falsas maniobras, in 1966. Its success coincided with the political life of the sixties and the consolidation of democracy under Rómulo Betancourt, and it made its author a symbol for many young people. In 2014 Cadenas declared that the poem no longer reflected him.
Who it is for
A single play, which can be read in one sitting; Rowena Hill translated it into English under the title Defeat.
Prizes and reception
La Tercera calls it a kind of lighthouse for Latin American poetry; it is the best-known poem of its author.
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